Enhancing Electoral Integrity: INEC’s Removal of 7,746 Deceased Voters from the National Register
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has removed 7,746 deceased individuals from Nigeria’s national voter register as of December 2022. This action was taken across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the voter list.
INEC regularly conducts comprehensive cleanups of the voter register before general elections. However, challenges persist, particularly due to gaps in official death records, which complicate the identification and removal of deceased registrants.
In its post-2023 election review, INEC noted that while 12,298,944 new voters were added during the registration exercise, 2,780,756 cases of invalid registrations—representing 22.6% of new registrants—were flagged and removed through the Automated Biometric Identification System.
Additionally, INEC expressed concern over declining voter turnout, with the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections recording a turnout of 27.5%, down from 35.6% in 2019. Some stakeholders attribute this decline partly to an inflated voter register and have called for more rigorous efforts to clean it.
To address these challenges, stakeholders have recommended that INEC strengthen collaboration with agencies such as the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to identify and remove deceased voters from the register. There is also a suggestion to suspend individuals who have not voted in the past three elections and require them to revalidate their registration.